What is better for India? united pakistan or further division

What suits India better, pakistan as it stands today or should there be an attempt to further divide it like we did in 1971?

There have been arguements stating unified and economically better off pakistan is good for us as we will have single authority to dialogue with and be able to negotiate better.Also that dividing it further will mean more anti India countries to tackle with.

History ( no matter how short) is strewn with examples that stronger pakistan has always meant War and more trouble for us. And we have been able to deal with mutated pakistan ( read bangla desh) with not much trouble up till now.

Whereas dividing pakistan on the lines of punjabis, balochis, pashtuns and others will mean each weaker state and easy to negotiate with.

I' am not saying that it is easy but rather trying to understand the options which our poicy makers have and their repercussions and how well are we equipped to negotiate them. and of course any road map which we should follow for any of the option.

Though this idea has been discussed before, i think we can dedicate this thread to a fresh set of ideas including the current geopolitical equations.

My first thought in this is that yes, we should support a further division of Pakistan. Not by overt means as in Bangladesh, but in covert manner by means of supporting the underlying resentment in that country. We already have the Baloch movement, Sindh too can be instigated. The Pakhtoons are a problem anyways. Not to mention the areas of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan including Gilgit Baltistan that has a strong underground movement to free itself from the clutches of Pakistan. Religion is the only thing in common in Pakistan. But the problem there is that the country is dominated by Punjabis. Others dont count as much. They are all over the place. Like the Chinese are doing in Xinjiang and Tibet where they settle Hans, the Pakistanis have been settling Punjabis in places of trouble including Kashmir. So all in all we can assist all those trying to free themselves from a mess called Pakistan. Then all that is left of that land is Punjab. So a smaller area for India to defend against. This assuming that the new state of Sindh will be friendly towards India with which India will share a common border.

Now will the separation be peaceful? I dont think so. Pakistan Army, the punjabis of it will not let go easily. There will be bloodshed and a lot of it. We all know that they are perfectly capable of killing their own men as in Bangladesh and also the killing in that country that goes on everyday. This will have a major impact on India as they all will flee to India which will cause a big problem for us. We will be forced to take care of them. Most will just disperse in India and live like Indian citizens causing social unrest in the future as we face the Bangladeshis.

Then comes the whole issue of supporting the new states formed which will definitely look up to India to help their new nations. We will have to do all we can so that other nations, like china dont put there foot in. So instead of us developing infrastructure in India, we will be doing in other countries just to keep others out. But then there is a positive outcome too over here. The gas pipeline can fructify as it will pass through Balochistan and Sindh which we assume will be friendly towards India for all India does for them.

A land locked PakJab can then be taken care of. They will have no access to any port. Both the Karachi port and the Gwadar Port will not be available. They will always be at loggerheads with the new nations diverting its attention from Kashmir. The Kashmiris who are on the Indian side will no longer look at Pakistan for support and they will feel they are better off with India. Its possible that the norther areas will also want to merge back with the Indian state and we have our map that has been cut up for 60 years complete and the seats in Lok Sabha lying vacant for them be filled up.

Though this idea has been discussed before, i think we can dedicate this thread to a fresh set of ideas including the current geopolitical equations.

My first thought in this is that yes, we should support a further division of Pakistan. Not by overt means as in Bangladesh, but in covert manner by means of supporting the underlying resentment in that country. We already have the Baloch movement, Sindh too can be instigated. The Pakhtoons are a problem anyways. Not to mention the areas of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan including Gilgit Baltistan that has a strong underground movement to free itself from the clutches of Pakistan. Religion is the only thing in common in Pakistan. But the problem there is that the country is dominated by Punjabis. Others dont count as much. They are all over the place. Like the Chinese are doing in Xinjiang and Tibet where they settle Hans, the Pakistanis have been settling Punjabis in places of trouble including Kashmir. So all in all we can assist all those trying to free themselves from a mess called Pakistan. Then all that is left of that land is Punjab. So a smaller area for India to defend against. This assuming that the new state of Sindh will be friendly towards India with which India will share a common border.

Now will the separation be peaceful? I dont think so. Pakistan Army, the punjabis of it will not let go easily. There will be bloodshed and a lot of it. We all know that they are perfectly capable of killing their own men as in Bangladesh and also the killing in that country that goes on everyday. This will have a major impact on India as they all will flee to India which will cause a big problem for us. We will be forced to take care of them. Most will just disperse in India and live like Indian citizens causing social unrest in the future as we face the Bangladeshis.

Then comes the whole issue of supporting the new states formed which will definitely look up to India to help their new nations. We will have to do all we can so that other nations, like china dont put there foot in. So instead of us developing infrastructure in India, we will be doing in other countries just to keep others out. But then there is a positive outcome too over here. The gas pipeline can fructify as it will pass through Balochistan and Sindh which we assume will be friendly towards India for all India does for them.

A land locked PakJab can then be taken care of. They will have no access to any port. Both the Karachi port and the Gwadar Port will not be available. They will always be at loggerheads with the new nations diverting its attention from Kashmir. The Kashmiris who are on the Indian side will no longer look at Pakistan for support and they will feel they are better off with India. Its possible that the norther areas will also want to merge back with the Indian state and we have our map that has been cut up for 60 years complete and the seats in Lok Sabha lying vacant for them be filled up.

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dreams i think its hardly possible i think we should focus on india itself rather diverting our energy towards splitting of pakistan as there is no grantee that nations which would be cerated after splitting of pakistan would be friendly towards us . it would be nice if we could get remanning part of jammu & fashmir form pakistan either by hook or crook or i think what is remanning with us is better

Yusuf,
Unless military support is extended, there is no hope for any movement in Pakistan. Any uprising will be brutally crushed.
On the other hand, the nukes ensure that we can't go over-board with our overt support.

It’s a little difficult to answer this question in a simple yes or a no. Tried answering this quite a few times in the past and each time I have had a newer out look to the evolving situation, and will try and present a new angle this time as well which will revolve around a united Pakistan where in we weaken the power structure so that they eventually adhere to our demands.

What are the objectives that we want either way to be achieved through Pakistan? The answers should mainly revolve around three main concerns: 1). No terrorism, 2). No threat to the existence of India, 3). Break the direct linkage of Pakistan and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) through land, which amounts to getting back Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), which also happens to be an occupied territory, that rightfully belongs to India.

Are these objectives achievable with a united Pakistan is the question to be pondered upon and will a united Pakistan serve the purpose.

1). No Terrorism:
Terrorism is a state policy of Pakistan which it started using post the ouster of the soviet forces from Afghanistan, with this policy they have been able to rack up the Kashmir issue at the international arena to close to two decades now, but looks like a policy which has really not carried the deliverables that it was supposed to, but off late this policy has been used in a different way by enhancing the scale where in complete India and not just Kashmir has been made the theater with the intent of destabilizing India as an economic destination.

In here Pakistan seems to be fighting a loosing battle, and to an extent India has been able to turn the tables on Pakistan, and has been quite successfully by getting the world to rally behind its point on labeling Pakistan as a terror epicenter, but Pakistan also has been able to scuttle the pressure by talking of rouge elements in the ISI and further by coining the term non-state actors.

India has pronounced a two point strategy to counter the above:-A). Create a pressure point on Pakistan through international players who have a big say on international affairs and who have good enough influence on Pakistan. The countries being used here are the USA, the EU, and to a lesser extent the PRC, the KSA (both have been used post 26/11 on various occasions) and Iran, and it seems to an extent India has been successful.B). Not differentiating between the state and non state actor, though for now we remain quite unsuccessful in this endeavor, and certain previous moves of ours have very well undermined it especially when it was accepted by the PM that there is a common threat being faced by Pakistan and India in the form of terrorism.

This does look like a point on which Pakistan will have to eventually either lower the support or completely cave in, as it seems they cant sustain it for long, especially when they are being cornered from all sides on the issue, and the way out is none other than diplomacy and for this a united Pakistan is in our favor.

2). No threat to the existence of India
The complete indoctrination of Pak Army (PA) has been to see India as an eternal enemy and their very existence revolves around the anti-India plank or they would have to give up on a most lucrative job in Pakistan which brings with it honour, lots of money, and a power setup that remains completely unchallenged and has no higher authority to which it is accountable to.

It is quite clear Pakistan Army wont give up on this no matter how much of diplomacy be used on this front. The way I see this being fought is on three fronts:-A). Bleed Pakistan economically:
The plan is quite simple. Pakistan Army has a psyche of one-upmanship under the disguise of “balance of power”. Lure them into an arm race which they will very readily do, and when we do that they will reciprocate by moving majority of their budgetary funding to the procurement of additional military hardware and software, much like what they have been forced to do as of today where a huge PKR600(+)billion has been diverted towards the defence budget of the total budget of PKR2,400billion. The main point to be noted here is, they have diverted their developmental budget (DB) to defence budget and now the DB remains a mere PKR270billion.

We can sustain this since India’s defence budget (32b usd) as a % of GDP (expected to be around 1.5t usd) will hover around 2.13%, of which the capex is 13b usd, so each year even if we increase the over all defence budget in accordance with the real growth we achieve (7-10%) we can quite literally force Pakistan to take to arms race and this will majorly be done by diverting funds from else where.

To accomplish this misson, we need to talk out with the 3 main world powers that feed Pakistan, the USA, the PRC and the KSA, and make sure they do not dole out financial aids or else in the end we would have achieved little success. The benefit of this is, the Pakistan awam gets adversely affected, with their miseries piling up which becomes a pressure group on Pakistan Army to not push their agenda which threatens the very stability and fabric of Pakistan and with that there remains a good chance of revolt against our grave threat, the Pakistan Army. For the success of this mission, we do not need to break up Pakistan.

B). Make them dependent on us for their day-to-day needs:
Use trade as a bargaining chip but that won’t be achieved till the time we do not have trade with them on a full scale, on a vast spectrum and for this we need to initiate talks around confidence building measures (CBMs) with trade as the critical component. The plan is very simple here, make them dependent on our dirt cheep goods and there are reports that have emerged which suggest that they have a fascination for Indian products unlike any other even though our products might be costlier than the Chinese or inferior in quality than those of best of the MNCs which gets highlighted well from the fact that their shaving blade market consists 80% of Indian made brands, and if that is the success story achieved through the smuggling route, I am sure if we have direct route which also means more revenue for the two countries, we will be able to capture more of their market and to an extent we will be successful on the diplomacy front in pushing across our points. In here again we do not need to break them up.

C). Push comes to shove – Breakup Pakistan:
There is no better way to engineer a break up of Pakistan than through Baluchistan, and if it were to come to it then this is the way out. People here do not associate themselves as Pakistanis and remain a highly disgruntled lot who seek independence, but before this is attempted I would like to see how have the other points worked out and the success rate, and we find no success and Pakistan continues harming our interests then engineering a break-up becomes an inevitable necessity.

3). Break the direct linkage of Pakistan and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) through land:
I am not desperate for this piece of land if our two main concerns of no terrorism, and no threat to the existence of India, can be addressed to by Pakistan.

Coming to this solution, is there any other way other than breaking up of Pakistan, and this part of land remains very critical to the survival of India, 1). Because this is a direct land linkage between the PRC and Pakistan 2). Because this land divides the Kashmirs and if this land can be annexed and made a part of the republic of India, a lot of grievances of the people of Kashmir will be addressed to.

On the whole we can make do with a very weak united Pakistan, which remains bogged down within its internal chaos, which does not present a challenge to us.

To make all of the above a success, the main thing to be done is to secure Indian assets and interests which can only be achieved when we make India internally strong and our assets and interests do not just remain confined to Indian boundary, so we also need to think on a muck larger scale. Just like the PRC last year was threatened by Al-Qaeda of harming their people and investments in overseas countries similarly we might be threatened by the ISI and by their terror outfits.

1) Punjab Seperatists group may get new blood and direct funding from the Paks Punjab.
2) May still put the fire in ex-Razzackars of the indo-pak war 1971.
3) Pak Punjab alone will become strong as it contributes the major GDP of Pak and making it easier for procuring more military

I feel that it is best served that we break up pakistan on ethnic backgrounds on lines of pashtoons, balochis, sindhis, punjabis and any other considerable group. Unified and economically strong pakistan has never been a good news for us. And i believe smaller, newer states economically dependent on outside help would present a wonderful opportunity to install puppet govts sympathetic to us. There are few possible ways that i see this happening:

1. Give pakistan some justification for all the blame they put on us and indeed speed up separatist movement in balochistan. We need to be more pro active on this front. Even if not for breakup, instigating balochi struggle will help us further as it divides paki attention, they are more focussed on internal problem assigning more funds and resources thus lesser trouble for us in terms of terrorism.

2.Bleed them economically. I think the massive build up that we had post parliament attack for close to a year really bled pakistan and they have not been able to recover since then. better up ties with traditional pakistan allies like we have done with Saudi. I think it is going to dent pakistan pysychologically deep where it hurts the most making them vulnerable from within.

3.Wreck image of pakistan army. pak army is the glue which loosely binds the nation and doing a good pr job thru likes of zaid hamid and other clowns who are justifying PA's offensive against taliban by associating them with us. why not swing the same sword at their necks and do counter propaganda instigating pakistani awam that PA is killing their own muslim brothers ( play up religious card) in name of fighting terrorism and making tonnes of money thru economic aid from US. once this glue looses support it will be easier to infiltrate.

using a military option too early could be counter productive for us. so we should wait and only lend a 'helping' hand to the oppressed party.

Break the direct linkage of Pakistan and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) through land
I am not desperate for this piece of land if our two main concerns of no terrorism, and no threat to the existence of India, can be addressed to by Pakistan.

Coming to this solution, is there any other way other than breaking up of Pakistan, and this part of land remains very critical to the survival of India, 1). Because this is a direct land linkage between the PRC and Pakistan 2). Because this land divides the Kashmirs and if this land can be annexed and made a part of the republic of India, a lot of grievances of the people of Kashmir will be addressed to.

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i do not agree with urs view . even we capture pok there is no grantee that people of pok would accept indian rule because as we know most of them have from different parts of pakistan and have settled there illegially and everbody kows here that people of J&K are demanding 4 what and thse people even wont settle if reclaim POK and integrate it with J&K . they will remian always unstaified ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.but i hope in future somebay GOI will capture and reclaim our part of kashmir.

^^ Karachi accounts for a major chunk of Pakistan's GDP and taxes. If that goes away, Punjab will sink.

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My 2 cents
Karachi being a financial centre probably has large number of corporates and stricter enforcement and therefore its official GDP can appear substantially bigger in comparison than it actually is. However, it still is imo a third of the contributor to the Pak economy (both official and underground)

I pondered over this question a lot and then looked back into 3000 year old indian history.Whenever indian western frontiers were not under central indian rule and were volatile on those occasions only india faced major invasion.whenever indian central rule started looking inwards instead of playing outside its borders they were reduced to dust by foreign invasions.right from Alexander to chardragupta maurya to samudraguta to kushanas huns,islamic invader who ever ruled india they lost only when there west was volatile. and in all 3000 years of indian history no emipre has apitite to expand outside indian subcontinent.and thus bought their fall.And in 21st century we are again repeating same mistake.there is something in our culture that we keep repeating history.And as for securing india pakistan has to go.India has to play in pakistan and afghanistan to secure its home in india.if we keep fighting them on our own ground then sure we will repeat our history by slowly seceding our land area.Sure this will be bloody but then it will be less bloodier than fighting at our home turf.

Pakistan is and will remain A TOXIC STATE.
But Pakistan will NOT disintegrate. why because SINDH AND Punjab are in a symbiotic relationship.
sindh needs water from punjab and punjab needs karachi .Baloochistan is too weak anyway.
Its population is too small .and NWFP has always been quasi -independent with its ties more towards Afghans.

India's interest is served if Pak army and civilian bureaucracy give up the hostility towards India
and accept status quo on Kashmir.

As India grows Bigger and stronger ,after 2020 Pakistan 's power AND space to negotiate/ bargain with India will reduce even further and only then will it realise that its anti India stance has yielded it NOTHING.

Is a divided Pakistan better than a united Pakistan?
The answer is yes

I however think we need to expedite this inevitability; Pakistan can easily be economically isolated and broken . I have said this earlier in another thread here. we cannot and should not go to war on military terms we can and should go to war with Pakistan on financial terms. subtle signals are the key.

1)The GOI should make no official announcement but move against companies that operate in both Pakistan and India(it is fairly easy to find one or the other fault with any firm if one is asked to do so); while rewarding companies that operate exclusively with India. We could increase taxes on companies that operate in Pakistan for one.

2)Make 26/11 an excuse for denying rights to any ship originating in an Pakistani port(flying any flag)to drop anchor in Indian waters.

3) We should deny overflight rights to any aircraft(from any carrier) originating in a Pakistani airport, we can claim we fear a 9/11 from terrorists who could have boarded the aircraft in Pakistan.

4)Increase our defense budget to 3% of our GDP and force them to dry their coffers.

5) Go on a massive PR exercise in the western capitals;use the immense power our diaspora wields and stop financial aid to Pakistan from sources other than the PRC.

Once Pakistan is financially broken ,covert support to pro sindh independence groups and pro baloch groups can be explored as an option as well.

Pakistan is and will remain A TOXIC STATE.
But Pakistan will NOT disintegrate. why because SINDH AND Punjab are in a symbiotic relationship.
sindh needs water from punjab and punjab needs karachi .Baloochistan is too weak anyway.
Its population is too small .and NWFP has always been quasi -independent with its ties more towards Afghans.

India's interest is served if Pak army and civilian bureaucracy give up the hostility towards India
and accept status quo on Kashmir.

As India grows Bigger and stronger ,after 2020 Pakistan 's power AND space to negotiate/ bargain with India will reduce even further and only then will it realise that its anti India stance has yielded it NOTHING.

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pakistan army giving up hostility towards india will never happen.crux of the matter is that existence of pakistans only hostility towards india and that the very foundation on which pakistan was made. And for that matter india has to decide what it has to do with pakistan.the status quo mentality of the india leadership has been a failure for from the inception of pakistan.Indian subcontinent is india's backyard where india never tried to exert itself against the outside power playing spoilsports for long history of indian subcontinent.india being the center of indian subcontinent,whenever shied away from the responsibilities of assuming its leadership has always resulted in the doom of whole region.after independence india always tried to exert itself or tried to assume leadership at world stage(for eg:NAM) but always leaving its own backyard unguarded. Today when we r again exerting ourselves on world stage in many matters,we are again leaving the fate of our backyard to others.isnt it silly that we were out of turkey conference on afganistan and no-one listened to us in london conf too.

Unless india exerts itself in indian subcontinent it will always be in danger.and no economic progress can be made in hostile terrorized environment.We will be just sitting on our pile of accumulated wealth waiting tor another invader like Ghazani/ghori/abdali to invade us and loot us. and to make india secure pakistan has to go.

Our media/politicos talk about india exerting its soft power(democracy/culture/bollywood/etc) in afghanistan and worldwide but to protect our soft power we must exert hard power too.today our soft power is lying on injured in afganistan with repeated attacks from pakistan and soon its going to be on its death bed.America too has soft power of hollywood,democracy,liberty but it also has 12 super-aircraft carriers patrolling the world to protect its soft power.

I believe that 1 of the 2 following scenarios is bound to happen in this specific region.
1). The break up of Pakistan via ethnic lines through Afghanistan, Iran and India with western backing
2). The break up of India via China and Pakistan through sustained yet brutal insurgency movements which are slowly but surely eating up parts of India.

Scenario number 1 is far more advanced in nature. Intel agencies are not as stupid as we think, but Pakistan has actually experienced significant eroded sovereignty in many forms to its already small land mass. With insurgency movements not going anywhere at the moment, it would be foolish for certain parties to strengthen the Pakistani establishment at a time when it is about to be its most vulnerable (post ISAF withdrawal of Afghanistan).

i do not agree with urs view . even we capture pok there is no grantee that people of pok would accept indian rule because as we know most of them have from different parts of pakistan and have settled there illegially and everbody kows here that people of J&K are demanding 4 what and thse people even wont settle if reclaim POK and integrate it with J&K . they will remian always unstaified ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.but i hope in future somebay GOI will capture and reclaim our part of kashmir.

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I support the opinion of Thakur... Terming 'capturing POK' sounds like colonization... But we should understand that J&K should not be a colony but a integral part of India. I think that if J&K is reclaimed, it would be at the cost that all the 'terror groups' in POK will be cleansed. So, the imigrant issue will cease to be major problem. India should be active enough to show development in these areas. Fast development will help in two ways. Firstly, the false image of India created by the separatists will be blurred. Secondly, there would be major immigration from other states, thus, diluting the opinion of the locals. I am sure the day will come.

apologies for flogging a dead horse but how has our experience been in terms of disintegrating pakistan in 1971. do we have considerable influence over bangladesh? is the new entitiy relatively pro India? these might be a few reference points we could consider if we are to disintegrate them further.

personally didiving them on ethnic lines will keep us safe as they will keep on fighting amongst themselves.